Herefordshire Past

The Newsletter of The Trust for the Victoria County History of Registered charity no. 1070427 Series 2, No.31, Spring2021 Chairman’s Letter

The last few months have been busy ones for the Trust. The history of published in 2020 has been well received, and a recent review in the journal Midland History described it as ‘ample testimony to the continuing relevance and vitality’ of the VCH. It is available for purchase from local bookshops and online at: https://www.sas.ac.uk/ publications/victoria-history-herefordshire- colwall. A full draft of the history of Cradley has now been completed and, following some final editorial work, is on track to be published next year. Recently we have appointed the medieval historian Dr Hannah Ingram to write parish histories for Coddington and Donnington. Hannah will start her research on these parishes in July. I am pleased to be able to announce that Lord Lisvane, KCB DL, has agreed to become one of our Patrons. Lord Lisvane, who retired as Clerk to the House of Commons in 2014, is very familiar with the VCH and keen to support progress in Herefordshire. CharlesWatkins

Inthis issue... Chairman’s Letter NotesfromtheEditor Report fromthe Treasurer Newsfrom CentralVCH Introducing Dr Hannah Ingram Coddington Church Early History History of Barton Court, Colwall New Research Project on A Note on Bishop John Harley’s Wife

- 2 - Notesfromthe Editor

Our chairman in his letter has reported the good news that Colwall has been well received, and that in spite of all the difficulties we have encountered over the last year, we have been able to appoint a contributing editor for the parishes of Coddington and Donnington. Hannah Ingram introduces herself later in this newsletter. When I wrote the editorial note for the Autumn number of this Newsletter six months ago, I hoped that we were on our way out of the Covid pandemic and that facilities for historical research would slowly return to normal in the first months of 2021. Sadly, that has not been the case. Libraries and record offices, including HARC, closed after Christmas when we went back into lockdown and have only just reopened to a reduced number of researchers. This means that Anastasia Stylianou, who is now based at the University of East Anglia, has been unable to finish dealing with some final queries on Cradley, delaying the submission of the text to the VCH central office. The closures have of course reduced the opportunities for all historical research, and consequently I feared that I would not receive the Newsletter articles I would normally have hoped for. However, David Whitehead has written an article putting forward some interesting suggestions on the early history of Coddington church, and Fergus Eskola-Oakes has sent a note on his discovery of information about the hitherto virtually unknown wife of Bishop John Hartley of Hereford (1552–4). I am grateful to George Demidowicz for a note on his new book on Barton Court, Colwall. George gave us a great deal of help when we were writing Colwall, but he has done further research since then. His new book expands the brief account we were able to give in the VCH parish history, including more information on the sometimes scandalous lives of some of the tenants of the estate. Now that archives are opening up, please consider writing something for the autumn newsletter! We also have a report on a new project, Towns and Cultural Economies of Recovery, covering Hereford. This 9-month project does not involve the VCH directly, but the university of London is one of the two universities involved and the existence of the Herefordshire VCH was a factor in the decision to include the city in the project. - 3 - We have reached the end of another financial year, and Jonathan Comber has produced the annual accounts for us. These may not be everybody’s favourite reading material, but it is important that they are published for everyone to see. Jonathan has done very well in obtaining grants, so that in spite of the lockdown our income went up in the last financial year. We hope later this year to be able to hold at least one of the fund-raising events we were unable to hold last year, but the situation is still uncertain. We will let everyone know as soon as we have some dates. Janet Cooper

Report from the Treasurer The accounts for the year to the end of March (presented at right) show that the Trust made a surplus of approximately £12,500. This is mainly due to our not paying our editors anything during the year, as work on Cradley has slowed because of archives being shut for most of the year for reasons that don’t need explaining. We have had a few fundraising successes principally £5,000 from the Mumford Memorial Trust and £5,000 (in two payments) from the Andrew Harris Trust. We also received grants from the Victoria County History Trust and the G W Smith Fund of the Woolhope Club towards publishing Colwall. We express our thanks to all these trusts. Despite no formal launch being possible, we have sold over half of the 300 copies of the Colwall book that we had printed, which has generated virtually all the £1,368 of publications income. Of the funds in the bank, we have commitments of £4,500 for the final instalments on Cradley, as well as £27,500 for the contract that has recently been let on Coddington & Donnington. This means we have about £10,000 for the next contract which is expected to be Mathon. As Mathon will include most of , I suspect this will be a full one-year contract, so we probably need to raise the best part of £20,000 before we are in a position to advertise for this work. However, based on the last few years, I think that should be achievable in the not too distant future – considering that in the last four years we have let contracts for Colwall, Cradley and now Coddington and Donnington. After the Mathon contract, we need to revisit , particularly Ledbury Rural, before we can produce the long-awaited Red book, but it is starting to look achievable. Jonathan Comber - 4 - THE VICTORIA COUNTY ACCOUNTS FOR THE YEAR ENDED 31 MARCH 2021

INCOME y/e 31/3/21 y/e 31/3/20 Grants and Donations 13,442 5,980 Gift Aid Tax Recovery 526 1,308 Interest 78 158 Sale of Publications 1,368 47 Fund Raising Events including 0 1,250 talk fees Total Income £ 15,414 £8,743

EXPENDITURE

Research Fees 0 23,072 Travel and Other Direct Costs 0 704 Stationery and Sundry 579 130 Courtyard Event deposit 0 125 Job Advert 250 0 Colwall Publication costs 2,092 0 Total Expenditure £2,921 £24,031

SURPLUS/(DEFICIT) £12,493 £(15,288)

FUNDS AT 1 April 2020 30,009 45,297 FUNDS AT 31 March 2021 42,502 30,009

REPRESENTED BY CASH AT BANK £42,502 £30,009

- 5 - Newsfromthe Centre

First of all, we are delighted that Nigel Tringham of the VCH was awarded an MBE in the New Year’s honours list. The citation reads: ‘Lately editor Victoria County . For services to local history.’ We think this the first time a VCH editor has been so honoured. The books that were nearing completion last autumn have all been published: Staffordshire vol. XII on Tamworth and Drayton Bassett, covering the area centred on the market town of Tamworth; the second part of the East Riding volume on Howden (vol. X part 2) covering the town of Howden and its extensive Liberty, which belonged to the bishops of Durham until 1836; and the ‘Short’ on Ibstock, Leicestershire. Work is in progress on a number of other Shorts. One of them is on Lutterworth, Leicestershire, best known for its connections to the dissident theologian John Wycliffe and, somewhat later, with Frank Whittle and the development of the jet engine. Another is on the Westminster parish of St George’s Hanover Square, and a third, in complete contrast, deals with the rural parish of Dummer, west of Basingstoke in Hampshire. Finally, there will soon be a change in our publication arrangements: we are looking forward to working with the team at University of London Press to produce our Red Books from hereon. This gives us an opportunity to update the design of the volumes and, we hope, to make them more affordable while retaining the quality of research and rigour of published history for which the VCH is admired.

- 6 - Dr. Hannah Ingram I am a medieval historian based at the University of Nottingham, where I completed my undergraduate, Masters and PhD degrees. My personal research interests are broadly focused upon the socio-economic history of late medieval , particularly during the period 1450–1550. My PhD research sought to reconstruct the lives and careers of some 3,500 businesspeople living and working in late medieval England during this period. This project traced the lives of these people through their interactions with the English staple courts and explored several key themes, including geographical influences, careerism, socio-economic categorisation and the relationship between wealth and status. In doing so, I was also able to create prosopographical case studies focused on selected individuals which provided a more intimate snapshot of life in late medieval England. Outside of this work, I have also published research on a variety of other topics which interest me. This has included research on land market dynamics; the reconstruction of ‘yeomen businessmen’ in Tudor England; and fifteenth- century disease and medicine, examined through the lens of the famous Paston, Stonor and Plumpton letters. Since completing my PhD research, I have worked as a postdoctoral researcher for the University of Nottingham. In 2019–2020, in conjunction with Nottinghamshire Museums Trust, I worked on a project to produce a detailed history of Newstead Abbey during its time as a monastic house for Augustinian canons. This project aimed to bring to life the previously underexplored medieval history of Newstead Abbey, which had otherwise been overshadowed by the abbey’s 19th-century occupant, Lord Byron. The project explored a wide range of medieval material and provided detailed insight into the lives of the abbey’s resident canons, ranging from the mundane, such as the food they ate and the clothes they wore, to their more illicit activities, including the women they smuggled into the house in the dead of night! Much of this research was incorporated into the Trust’s public engagement strategies and events, such as the Nottingham Medieval Pageant, which included costumed re-enactments. At the same time, I also began working as an independent contract researcher for the Northamptonshire VCH, researching and writing the medieval history of Towcester town for their upcoming eighth volume. I have since also researched and written two parish histories for the volume: Tiffield and Pattishall. Working for VCH Northamptonshire has been an extremely rewarding experience and has allowed me to expand my scope as a

- 7 - Coddington Church Some Speculations and its early History There is a 19th century tradition that the church of All Saints at Coddington, like that of St James, Cradley, has pre-Conquest origins, but, unlike Cradley, there is no firm archaeological evidence to support the supposition. The building of a new tower and spire in 1865 required deep excavations. The Hereford Journal reported in an article celebrating the re- opening of the church on 7 September 1866 that ‘In making excavations the remains of a Saxon structure were discovered’. The reporter added that ‘the present building was erected in the 12th century’. Clearly, what was found had nothing in common with the existing structure in whose walls five Romanesque door arches are still visible. One of these, on the south-west, is used as the present entrance to the nave. Further east, in the south-west corner of the chancel, there is a priest’s door, and midway between the two there is another marooned voussoir or door-head. Similarly on the north side of the nave, towards the west there is another entrance with its mouldings intact and a further orphaned voussoir to the east, close to the chancel. For a relatively small church this is a remarkable South side of the nave with three Romanesque entrances number of access points, all appearing to date from the 11th or 12th centuries. Most of the dateable structure today – the chancel arch and lancet windows – date from the 13th century. The early entrances are said to relate to the consecration of the church during the episcopacy of Gilbert Foliot (1148 – 68). Of greater significance, perhaps, is the dedication in 1231 of three altars to St Peter, St Mary and St Milburg, by his namesake Bishop Hugh Foliot. Again, this seems to be an excessive number of altars for a small single-cell parish church. Perhaps the most eye-catching name in the list is St Milburg (fl. 690–727) of Wenlock. She was the daughter of Merewalh (c. 625–685), the founder of the first English dynasty in the region and son of Penda, the powerful ruler of . Milburg, subsequently the abbess of Much Wenlock, was a popular local saint and flanked by the altars of St Peter and St Mary, it sounds as if Coddington may have been a pilgrimage centre with a shrine to St Milburg, validated by the presence of St Peter and Mary. The - 8- The multiplicity of doors was probably necessary to ease ingress to and egress from the shrine, which may have stood on the north side of the church where an empty bracket survives on the wall. The existence of such a shrine, which would have been destroyed at the Reformation, would have North wall of nave showing blocked door and voissoir near given the medieval All east end Saints’ church a status which seems to have been lacking in more recent times. The living has always been a rectory, but a poor one, and its rectors frequently had to make ends meet by holding the church in plurality. Moreover, the position of Coddington church locally has been eroded by and Colwall. However, this erosion appears to have been a comparatively recent development. Bosbury church was a vicarage, the bishop having appropriated the considerable rectorial income in the 1270s. Its physical position beside the bishop’s manor house suggests that it was founded as a manorial church rather than as a higher status minster. A similar situation existed at Colwall where the church is close to, but not actually beside, the site of the manor house; the surviving structure incorporates an 11th-century window. The rectory was not as well-endowed as that of Bosbury and was not appropriated by the medieval bishops, so the living remains a rectory. It is worth considering the possibility that All Saints’ at Coddington was, in the past, more important than it appears today. First of all, the church is in a striking position, occupying the top of a conical hill, with stunning views in all directions and, as other commentators have noticed, it has 180-degree prospect to the west, embracing a large part of Herefordshire, across to the Black Mountains. Even when viewed from the hills to the east, it holds a prominent position in the foreground. This is accentuated by the raised perimeter of the churchyard, which elevates the church above its immediate surroundings, except on the south where the modern car park has eroded the separation. Without entering into treacherous waters, it may be noted that the churchyard appears to be sub-circular. Topographically, it would make a prominent feature when seen from a distance by would-be pilgrims. - 9 - Interestingly, whilst Bishop Foliot was setting up the three altars he issued a mandate concerning a pension paid by the rector of Coddington to the rectors of Ledbury. In the Valor Ecclesiasticus this is one shilling per year; a small amount but perhaps an acknowledgement of an independent income received by the rector of Coddington from pilgrims visiting the church or alternately, a reminder for the incumbent of Coddington, that Ledbury was now the primary church of the region. The elevation of Ledbury to the head of a parochia had occurred late in the 7th century when Mildfrith (c. 680–730), the king of the Magonsaete, and son of Merewalh, gave a large territory in ‘Malvern Woods’ to the new minster. This was confirmed in the mid-12th-century by a bull from Pope Innocent II to Robert de Bethune (bishop 1131–1148), a record of which was preserved in the register of Bishop Trefnant in 1394. It is possible that when this transaction occurred, Coddington, with its conic hill poking out of the primeval Malvern Woods, became associated with Milburg, making it a primary site in the story of Christianity in East Herefordshire. Alternatively, as Milburg, notwithstanding her Anglo-Saxon pedigree was a popular saint in the early Middle Ages, the shrine at Coddington may have reflected this revival and come later. However, when Bishop Trefnant made his visitation of Coddington in 1397 there was nothing that suggested the cult of St Milburg was still flourishing. The priest neglected his services and kept his hay and calves in the church, whilst the burial ground was being grubbed-up by his pigs. David Whitehead

Note on Sources: For the church architecture see RCHME Herefordshire II (1932), p. 50; for its position Hereford Journal 16 September 1857 and Littlebury, Directory of Herefordshire (1876), p. 131. For a recent sceptical discussion of cemetery enclosures in Wales see David Petts, The Early Church in Wales (The History Press, Stroud, 2009), pp. 117-26 For St Milburg’s altar see Julia Barrow (ed,), English Episcopal Acta VII Hereford 1079-1234 (British Academy, 1993), pp. 251, 319; for the saint’s life see H.P.R. Finberg, The Early Charters of the (Leicester U.P. 1972), pp. 197-224. For the position of Ledbury church see William W. Capes (ed.), Charters and Records of Hereford Cathedral (Wilson & Phillips, 1908), p.6; Julia Barrow, ‘A Lotharingian in Hereford: Bishop Robert’s Re-organisation of the Church of Hereford 1079-1095’ in David Whitehead (ed.), Medieval Art, Architecture and Archaeology at Hereford (BAA Conference Transactions XV (1995), p. 30; Sheila A.K. Waddington, ‘The Anglo-Saxon mother churches of eastern Herefordshire’ in Trans, Woolhope Natur. Fld. Club,62 (2014), pp. 76-7; William Capes (ed.),The Register of John Trefnant (Hereford,1914), p. 166. For Bishop Trefnant’s visitation see A.T. Bannister, ‘Visitation returns for the in 1397’ in English Historical Review 45 (1930), pp. 93-4 - 10 - A History of Barton Court Colwall

It is remarkable how much history lies behind the account of Barton Colwall, about a page in length, recently published in the Herefordshire VCH volume for Colwall. By coincidence during the consultation period on the drafts for the latter, the Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty commissioned me to write a history of Barton Court, as part of the AONB project to guide restoration and fund the repair of the medieval dovecote. As the research progressed, I was able to help update the section on Barton Colwall. Further work made new discoveries and revealed much new information. The book, A History of Barton Court, Colwall, was published In February this year by the AONB with the aid of the Kindle Direct Publishing programme. It is available on Amazon Books, UK, at a cost of £16 (pp. 110, 62 figures). When times are more favourable it will also be placed for sale in local outlets. Barton Court is one of the principal houses in Colwall. Until the mid 19th century the house and its landed estate supported one of the prebendaries of Hereford Cathedral. As absentee landlords, the prebendaries would lease the house and land, known as the Barton or le Barton for much of its history, to tenants. The estate or sub- manor was also called Barton Colwall to distinguish it from the other principal holding in the parish, Bishop’s Colwall. From the 16th century onwards many of the tenants have been identified and their family trees reconstructed, including the Trovells, the Berkeleys, the Peytons, the Cave- Brown-Caves and the Brights. The dramatic personal story of one particular tenant, Henry Lambert (1789–1814), is notable for his father’s resistance to his marriage to the Hope End heiress, Jane Prichard, and, as fate would have it, his own violent objection to the marriage of his daughter, Susannah, to Sir Henry Tempest. Sir Henry notoriously abandoned Susannah for his cousin and, in 1809, sold Hope End to buy a new home in which to live with her and their daughter.

- 11 - Barton Court achieved its present appearance in the late 18th century when Henry Lambert enlarged and rebuilt it. Henry had been a naval officer in the Seven Years War. His Anglo-Irish origins, however, and the source of his wealth remain somewhat of a mystery. He left none of it to his daughter, and his fortune was fought over in Chancery by his Irish relatives for many years after his death Through close examination of the fabric of the building, the various phases in the development of the house have been identified, illustrated with the help of plans. Early timber-framed and stone fabric can be found in the cellars of the house. The evolution of the Barton Court landed estate itself has also been analysed and illustrated with maps, particularly during the great changes that took place in the 19th century. The name Barton Court eventually became attached to the more extensive Bright family holdings, which in the late 1880s had incorporated a small part of the Barton Court estate in the immediate vicinity of the house. The Peytons hung onto the larger remnant. As a consequence the Bright ‘Barton Court’ estate bore little geographical resemblance to the Barton Court prebendary estate of the early 19th century. The Bright heiress married Roland Cave-Brown Cave, notorious for his many failed projects, financial profligacy and shameless accumulation of debt. All led inevitably to bankruptcy and the loss of the estate, but prior to this, Brockhill Road, still unfinished today, was laid out, one of the lesser known of the Cave-Brown-Cave Colwall projects. The book is profusely illustrated with the author's own maps and incorporates much hitherto-unpublished archival material fully referenced with end notes. George Demidowicz

- 12- New Research Project on Hereford.

The AHRC (Arts and Humanities Research Council) have given funding to a research project covering four places including Hereford. Although it is not a project directly involving new primary research from the Victoria County History, one of the lead researchers is Professor Catherine Clarke who is Director of the VCH (among other roles). Hereford was chosen because Herefordshire is an active VCH County with good local networks and knowledge. Among the reasons why the Herefordshire VCH agreed to assist the project was to raise the VCH profile in Herefordshire and to show that we are interested in the whole county and that when funds permit, we wish to start research elsewhere in the County rather than just the area around Ledbury. The Towns and Cultural Economies of Recovery initiative is a nine-month research scoping project funded by the AHRC, led by researchers from the University of Southampton and the University of London. It aims to better understand how the creative, cultural and heritage sectors are involved in the broader and changing economies of towns - in the context of ongoing change to their landscapes, and post-COVID-19. The starting point for the project is the government’s ‘100 Towns List’ of places which have been selected to benefit from a Towns Fund for renewal and development. (This list includes Hereford, despite its being a cathedral city.) Core project partners include Historic Englandand NESTA’s Policy and Evidence Centre for the Creative Industries. The project is also working with researchers and professionals in the Social Sciences based at the Centre for Towns Think Tank. There arefour case studies, through which the project will explore these issues in depth, and incorporating as many voices from the communities as possible. The case studies are: Hereford, Bournemouth, Darlington and Southend. It is anticipated that the scoping project will identify new research agendas and opportunities, including: • The role of the cultural, creative and heritage sectors in economies of regeneration and recovery • Place-making in material, virtual and blended contexts • The specific cultural needs, identities and differentiated characters of British towns and regions • New approaches to sustainability, regeneration and growth

- 13 - The research teamwould like to hear from people who are willing and interested in helping, particularly those who have knowledge of Hereford. Whilst this project will not fund new research into Hereford, we hope that it will raise the profile of the VCH; it also has the potential to create or enhance links with business, cultural and local government leaders. At a national level, the project is really important in showing the relevance and potential application of VCH knowledge and networks, as well as local history more broadly. Your commitment to the project might include: • writing a short blog for the project website (in consultation with the project team) • attending an online creative workshop in July at which these issues will be discussed with representatives from Hereford’s cultural, education, business and local government sectors • creating a short introductory ‘history of Hereford’ presentation • being part of a collective Hereford ‘brain bank’ – this might involve helping the researchers make links with arts, culture and heritage organisations of all sizes • providing contacts for the Project team to follow up Please see www.AndTowns.co.uk and the Twitter @AndTowns for more information. If you are interested in finding out more about the project please initially contact me at [email protected] as I am acting as the link between the researchers and locals in Herefordshire who wish to assist. Please advise your areas of interest and expertise so that the research team can contact you when they have a query. (Incidentally, if you do look at the website, it is not a mistake that Hereford is described as a town. The project team are using the definitions used by https://www.centrefortowns.org/our-towns which limits cities to the 12 biggest (by population) in Great Britain.) Jonathan Comber

- 14 - A Note on Bishop John Harley’s Wife

The period of Bishop John Harley’s episcopate was extremely short. He was appointed to the see of Hereford in October 1552, but he was only consecrated on 26 May 1553, possibly as a result of his reluctance to pay the government’s price for his elevation. His timing was unfortunate. Harley was a dedicated Protestant. He was briefly tried for heresy in 1547 for vehemently attacking the Pope in a sermon and upholding the doctrine of justification by faith alone. Cleared with royal approval, his career flourished under Edward VI leading to his elevation to Hereford. With Edward’s death in July 1553, however, Harley quickly fell afoul of Queen Mary and was imprisoned in September 1553 for leaving the church during the elevation of the host. He was finally deprived of his see on 15 March 1554 on the grounds that he was married. He had died by 1558. The name of Harley’s wife, as his Oxford Dictionary of National Biography entry notes, is ‘unrecorded’. It was while studying a chancery legal case launched by a John Bromald of London in 1559 over the rectorship of Cradley that we chanced upon a rather intriguing discovery. Stored in the National Archives at Kew, the plea to Sir Nicholas Bacon, Keeper of the Great Seal, concerns John Bromald’s complaint that he had not been presented to Cradley upon the death of the former incumbent, William Booth, as had been agreed between John, bishop of Hereford, and Rowland Longe of Cradley, to whom the right of the next presentation had been granted. Bromald pleaded that the parties be subpoenaed to appear before the Queen’s court of chancery so he could seek redress for the loss. Buried in the text though is a rather illuminating sentence which refers to John Bromald as ‘the sonne of Elizabeth xxx then wyff to the said Busshope to the said church’. The plea reveals both that Harley’s wife was called Elizabeth and that she was presumably already a widow on her marriage to him. Harley then, during his brief period in office, made efforts to advance the prospects of his stepson by trying to secure the rectorship of the wealthy parish of Cradley for him. The fulfilment of this agreement by Rowland Longe during Mary’s reign would have been deeply problematic. Instead, the Catholic John Parfey was presented to the rectorship. Elizabeth survived her husband who had died by 1558. Fergus Eskola-Oakes

- 15 - The Committee The chairman is Professor Charles Watkins (Nottingham University). The other trustees are: Professor Chris Dyer (Leicester University, formerly chairman of the VCH central committee); Dr Janet Cooper (formerly Editor of the Essex VCH); Herefordshire archaeologist Professor Keith Ray (our Hon Secretary); historian David Whitehead (our Vice Chairman, formerly of the 6th Form College, Hereford); Jonathan Comber (Hon Treasurer) and Tom Davies (formerly Hon Treasurer). They are joined by three committee members: historians John Fagg, Valerie Goodbury and Dr Alice Harvey-Fishenden. Our Herefordshire patrons are: Mr Edward Harley, OBE, Lord Lieutenant of Herefordshire; Sir Roy Strong, CH; Mr James Hervey- Bathurst, CBE, DL; Mr Lawrence Banks, CBE; and Lord Lisvane, KCB, DL.

The Trust’s aim is to support the writing of the history of the towns and parishes of Herefordshire as part of the Victoria History of the . The VCH, ‘the greatest publishing project in English local history’, is managed by the Institute of Historical Research, University of London. It is renowned for its scholarship but also aims to be accessible to the growing number of local historians throughout the country.

Contact details: [email protected]

Newsletter Editor: DrJanetCooper 16MerrivaleCrescent,Ross-on-WyeHR95JU [email protected]

ThisNewsletter is published inMayandNovember Back copies canbeviewedon ourwebsite: www.history.ac.uk/research/victoria-county- history/county-histories-progress/Herefordshire